Alberto Giacometti in Postwar Paris

New Haven and London: Yale University Press in Association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, 2001. Book. Fine. Hardcover. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. Pale grey hardcover with title in black on spine. Condition: Fine, binding sound, no inscriptions. Dustjacket condition: Fine, with just the faintest hint of shelfwear. 171pp. Many colour and b/w plates. This beautifully produced book was published to accompany the exhibition of work by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) held at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, the University of East Anglia, Norwich from 2 October to 9 December 2001. The exhibition then toured to the Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne from 1 February to 12 May 2002.In this book, Michael Peppiatt, the author and curator of the exhibition, gives a vivid account of the crucial moment when Giacometti returned from his wartime exile in Geneva to his beloved Paris, a city traumatized by the war but receptive to new movements and ideas. He describes how Giacometti's way of seeing life--and his way of working--underwent several dramatic transformations during this period. He sheds light on Giacometti's closest relationships at the time, not only with his lover, Isabel Delmer, his brother Diego, and his young wife, Annette, but also with his writer friends Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Samuel Beckett, and Jean Genet. Exploring the mainsprings of Giacometti's creativity, Peppiatt presents four key texts by the artist, translated into English for the first time, that poignantly describe and illuminate his deepest fears and obsessions. Using rarely seen photographs Peppiatt also discusses Giacometti's studio, which the artist regarded as a continual, indispensable source of stimulus..